Someone needs to throw all of those movies in the garbage and start fresh. Id like to see more applicable life drawing used in cartoons. (i.e. spumco characters with kirk douglas chins, peter lorre eyes, etc.) And though Im a fan of the man's man type. I would settle for anything with real identifiable character behind it

The Disney princes/heros are WAAAAAY more attractive than John Wayne. What planet are you all on?

And I'd venture to say any girl would agree. Straight men seem threatened by pretty boys. They want all depictions of women to be cover girls and under 25, the men to be over 40 and look all beat up, and want those same women to fall all over those men. Its a very hetero male view that isnt really based in reality. Do you want to know what females, and gay men, find attractive? Look at anime men and you'll get an idea. I'm not saying its healthy to force this standard of beauty, but to try and say they aren't hot is ridiculous.

I feel the discussion of this topic has ventured into a strange false reality. Can we please at least admit that pretty boys, like Flynn Rider, Justin Timberlake, Robert Pattinson, etc, are attractive and move on from there?

For me, it's not so much attraction. My favourite Disney man is Ichabod Crane. Not because he was supposed to be attractive, but because he had a unique design. Those Disney pretty boys, as people call them, look a lot a like. Pattionson and Timberlake are not the same person with a different skin colour or facial hair. They're both considered "pretty", but they're completely different. As for anime, I prefer it when they do manly because it's at least funny to look at. I guess manly is naturally funny to me. Popeye built his career on manly, and he's not exactly something girls would swoon over. At least I wouldn't!

Not that I hate pretty boys. My favourite is Tony Perkins, because he was so expressive.

@Carmine I'd find individuality more appealing than the same old boring prince clone. I'd like it better if they actually had a lead character that others might find ugly. Just as long as that character had some distinguishing features and expressions.

Carmine, I hate those effeminate pretty boys and I'm a woman. I think that girls find them easier to like b/c they look like women and present less of a threat.

I think it's because the modern idea of masculinity is a repulsive caricature (baggy pants, diamond "grillz," hatred for mature sexuality) and the girly men at least provide girls with a fantasy of a nicer boyfriend.

Neither system is really based in reality, any more than the view you described.

BTW, Pete Emslie mentioned how Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne were all rugged handsome. Well, they were as they got older. with John W. being the most rough around the edges when he was 18-25. But when when these heart throbs were young they had Disney-like pretty faces.

Just look at the early films:

Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong

Jimmy Stewart in You Can't Take it With You

John Wayne in Long Voyage Home ( and that nifty near perfect Swedish accent!)

Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday

I can't think of any early Clark Gable films where he was under 25, so I'm at a loss there.

All of these men had smooth faces before they aged. They also all aged like fine wines :D I bet if you exhumed Cary Grant's corpse, he would still be gorgeous!Perhaps we should reserve part of our critique of Disney until they design a handsome older male character. The closest we have right now is Phoebus ( whom I adored).

I'm curious to see your remedy for the identical pretty girls that have plagued animation since Snow White. pretty much every princess since Ariel looks like Ariel, and has an identical body type. The only exception I can really think of is Lilo's big sister Nani in Lilo and Stitch.

I think I've read before on your blog that people are afraid to draw pretty girls, but all I ever see in animation ARE pretty girls... the same one over and over, I might add. Isn't there more than one kind of attractive lady out there to draw?

"Can we please at least admit that pretty boys, like Flynn Rider, Justin Timberlake, Robert Pattinson, etc, are attractive and move on from there?

Females and fags, back me up here..."

Flynn's prettiness doesn't bug me so much as his smarmy personality. I am a girl and I suppose I like guys as different as Jet Li and Robert Downey Jr. I find distinctive personas appealing. I know a lot of women like Robert Pattinson, but a lot of women are dumb. Disney is trying to cater to the lowest common denominator and it makes for shitty art.

If only we can created a generic pretty boy with the worst kind of defaults ever existed to force him to act like a real men. Kirk Douglas, Clark Gabble, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and the likes can be qualified as true mens who wasn't alienated by the post-1960's standard of entertainment like done today.

SoleilSmile, you make a good point, maybe it has something to do with age. Young Gregory Peck is smokin hot. BTW, I totally agree about Carl Urban!

@Moro, you are right, it is catering to the lowest common denominator. I wasn't defending shoving an impossible standard of beauty down society's throat, I know its not right in many ways. Objectification of males and females, judging people based on youth and beauty, isn't healthy. I was just trying to say that good or bad, they are attractive, and so many were trying to say they are not, mainly hetero men.

And I agree about Flynn's smarmy personality. Its one thing to make good looking characters, its another to make them arrogant about it, which is what Tangled looks like to me, and probably why I haven't seen it yet.

Aaron: Everyone is just desperately trying to defend the movie. There's really nothing good about it. Just watch Sleeping Beauty and you'll be twice as satisfied. Or Song of the South, or Snow White. Now those are beautiful animated features.

Perhaps JK or Katie R or Pete E can take the virused characters (well defined by the earlier metrosexual poses), consider them rotoscopes of aliens, and rework them into more appealing characters like John W., Kirk D, Brad P or whoever's a desirable alternative? At least the Metrosexual poses give some skeletal clues as to where to begin the process. But if that's similar to restyling a Trabant to imitate a Porsche, my apologies.

My trouble drawing line art males is figuring out which details to keep or omit. 1 Example: Male lips; get 'em wrong and the drawn male looks like he's wearing lipstick.